


Meeting again for the first time

by Feather (lalaietha)



Series: Settle in and find your home [9]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, Maria Hill is awesome, Maria's hobby is cooking, Sam is a mental health professional
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-12
Updated: 2016-01-12
Packaged: 2018-05-13 07:44:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5700526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lalaietha/pseuds/Feather
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I'm not going to ask about specifics," she says, quietly, moving to walk a bit closer so (Sam's pretty sure) she can <i>stay</i> quiet, "because we both know you're not going to give them to me and fuck knows I get that. But given that it's all going to land in my lap if it does go wrong, your general impression would be . . . appreciated."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Meeting again for the first time

**Author's Note:**

> This series is linked to my [your blue-eyed boys](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1690700/chapters/3595874) and [(even if i could) make a deal with god](http://archiveofourown.org/series/132585), and explores both Sam's pov of same and also other things Sam is doing in his own life. 
> 
> Fic occurs during Sam's visit to New York in [your blue-eyed boys (1: someone's bound to get burned) chapter 4](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1690700/chapters/3595928).

Sam sort of feels like he has two first-meetings with Maria Hill. 

He met _Agent_ Hill in the back of a paddy-wagon, while he was truly torn between whether to be most terrified by Natasha's GSW, Steve's obvious _meltdown_ , or his own clearly impending death. Whereupon Agent Hill added a totally new terror - that of the unknown, as in "what the fuck is even going on with that person with the taser-baton and why did she just attack the other guy and why is she asking who I am?" 

He might've stared for a minute at that point, and had to reboot his brain before he could help her get the stupidly overdone restraints off Steve, and get his attention back to the here and now.

Agent Hill had subsequently impressed emphatically upon Sam her competence, diligence, intelligence, and an icy efficiency that wasn't so much cold-blooded as it implied her veins ran with glaciers. That had broken exactly once, when Steve called the strike that was, coincidentally, _on himself_ \- broken for two words, and two seconds later she'd punched the button, anyway. And the next time her voice came over comms, she'd been exactly as she was before. 

Everything about Agent Hill also silently screamed - at least to Sam - that once upon a time she'd been Captain Hill, and if someone out there wasn't cursing the fact that they'd never get Lieutenant-Colonel Hill, it could only be because they were idiots. And it was very, very clear that Agent Hill mostly only showed any other side when she chose too (maybe even with that one _but Steve_ ) and she'd act just the same on a gurney or even in front of a firing squad. 

Which means that he _only_ met Agent Hill, on Insight Day. 

Sam can't actually say he meets _Maria_ until the first morning of his first post-Barnes-arrival trip to New York. The one where, by this point, he knows better than to _try_ to sleep in past his normal time, and decides he might as well go for a run, since he's up anyway. Maybe it'll let him see a little bit of what's around the Tower before there are so many people even his crowd-anxiety starts to kick in. 

He knows from Steve that Hill's living at the Tower at the moment, but he still doesn't expect to run into her in the foyer at five-fifteen, also dressed like she's going for a run, complete with a water-bottle strapped to her hip. With her hair in a messy bun and wearing exercise gear, she's not _quite_ as imposing, although he can read a couple scars on her upper arms as bullet-grazes and a thin one on her throat as a slightly terrifying knife-wound (well, sharp-edged-object, anyway) and that certainly has its own impact. He can't quite tell if she's unhappy to see him or not, but her smile at least manages to look friendly. 

"Morning," she says. "You always get up this early on holiday?" 

While Sam hadn't been the slightest bit surprised when Natasha hadn't gone along with Nick Fury to smoke rats out of their European holes, he had been a bit surprised when Hill stayed stateside, too. You didn't need to be a genius to figure out the kind of loyalty that would _have_ to be there in order to be the person Nick Fury _did_ trust to organize his fake death, and that kind doesn't come from devotion to an institution. That's the kind of thing that's personal. 

And she'd been the one to stop Fury from arguing with Steve, in the bunker, for which Sam is actually pretty damn grateful, because _nothing_ would've stopped Steve, Natasha was in her realm of silent watching, and it's not like Sam had any damn leverage there. But that means something, too. Sam met the guy for all of twenty-four hours, but even that's enough to know there aren't a lot of people whose opinions are gonna sway Nick Fury, let alone stop him from firing back at the kind of shit Steve'd been slinging. 

And yet, Maria Hill went to Stark Industries. 

Sam's not 100% sure what Maria's actual job at the company _is_. Her _title_ is _General Director of Operations_ , but Steve's pretty sure Pepper made it up for her, and more or less made up her position, too, and Sam can't see any reason to doubt him on that. 

"Force of habit," Sam replies, smiling back. "I can fall off the wagon when it comes to diet, bedtime, continuing ed, lots of stuff - but I always seem to be awake around now, and trying to stay in bed just leaves me restless. So I figure, hey, might as well keep one good habit. Want some company?" 

He's got a couple inches on her, but he's nowhere near stupid enough to let himself think that means she's going to be on the _slower_ end, if there's any difference in speed between them. It's not like he's leering or anything, but exercise outfits don't tend to leave a lot to the imagination, and the lines of Maria's body (particularly her shoulders, arms, and legs) are clearly those of a woman who only lets it get out of shape after a severe injury or long illness, and then beats and bullies it back into the condition she wants just as soon as she can, and probably before any of her doctors want her to. 

"I feel like I should warn you it'd be a boring run," she says. "I have my route charted to available working surveillance cameras, which doesn't make for exciting scenery, and I do wind-sprints on my way back." 

Sam gives her a puzzled look. "Surveillance cameras," he says, following her out of the door, since despite the warning it doesn't feel like she was saying "no". It actually feels like she means what she says. 

This time, Maria's smile is thin, rather than a signal for _friendly_. "Right now, nobody who wants to bury me has any legal grounds," she says, "which means none of them are willing to get caught grabbing me on camera. It's still a bit of a risk, but if I don't get away from all this," and she waves her hand at the Tower, "without a goddamn detail at least once a day, I'm going to go postal." 

It's the kind of explanation that leaves you blinking, or at least leaves Sam blinking, but also doesn't leave much in the way of questions once he's given it two seconds' thought: there've got to be a _fuck_ of a lot of people out there, he realizes, that would really love to see Nicholas J. Fury's 2IC dead right now, and even more who'd like to have a long and really unpleasant talk with her first, and then see her dead right afterwards. So as these things go, it's a reasonable consideration. 

It's warm outside, and it'll be warmer later, but for now it's okay. The pace she sets is pretty easy, actually, though she might be staying a bit slow just to make conversation possible. There's some people out, of course - vendors setting up stalls, people who work early, other people like them taking a run. Sam wonders what it's like to have _reason_ to side-eye each of them and wonder if they're out to get you. It can't be fun. 

He's kind of grateful his time in that kind of world was short and, if not sweet, at least survivable. 

"That why you're living at the Tower?" he asks, coming back up beside her after they fall into single-file for a second to get past a guy setting up a really complicated looking hot-dog stand. She nods. 

"It'll blow over," she says, shrugging a little as she moves. "In about six months anyone who cares enough to pull anything knows I'll've had enough time to deal with contingencies - I'll've had a chance to tell anyone anything I want, which means their secrets are already out if I have'em, or that whatever secrets I know that they want to know won't be secret anymore within hours of me disappearing. Then my value drops like Enron stock and I can get a fucking penthouse somewhere and go back to being moderately paranoid instead of obscenely paranoid. And about the same time, Congress'll've given up even thinking about trying to stick me in a cell somewhere, or trying some kind of stupid-ass extraordinary rendition, so I won't need to _literally_ hide behind Legal anymore." 

"Makes sense," Sam agrees, although really it's the kind of makes-sense that's also I'll-take-your-word-for-it. 

She speeds up after that. She might've been holding back to let him get the questions over, Sam realizes, instead of having to keep them until the walks on her sprints, because when he paces her she speeds up again and where she eventually maintains is honestly a pretty tough pace for the length of time she keeps it up. Faster than Sam usually takes morning runs these days, for sure, and towards the end, she ends up about a block ahead of him. 

He sees her first genuine smile - that is, a smile that happens because she actually feels like smiling, not because she's making sure she looks approachable - when he stops and waits for him, finger on her carotid pulse and glancing at her watch two or three times. Sam leans on his knees for a second when he gets to her, catching his breath. 

"Okay," she says, looking amused and even a bit contrite, "sorry, that was mean. I just have almost nothing to do these days except work and work out." And Sam thinks there's no _way_ that's true, at least literally, not with all the shit he already knows is in the Tower - but he could see her being the kind of person who, when she _feels_ trapped, has a hard time seeing what freedoms she does have. Or enjoying them. 

She seems a little more energetic now than she did in the foyer, anyway - the kind of change where you don't really notice someone's subdued until after they perk up, and then you look back and realize how flat they were in comparison. Sam waves a hand in her direction and shakes her head. 

"Nah," he says, wiping his face with his shirt and standing up. "You didn't lap me twice on a four mile route while being a smartass shit, we're cool." 

Maria gives a little burst of a laugh and her eyebrows go up. "Steve, I'm assuming," she says, and Sam nods. She takes a drink out of her water-bottle and then holds it out to him, tilted like a question. 

"Who else?" Sam replies, and takes the bottle with an added, "Thanks. It's how we met, actually. He passes me the first time, I think maybe some fast asshole's just sprinting. Then he laps me. Then he laps me _again_ , and I let stupid pride get ahold of me just long enough to just about kill myself trying to keep up with him for a bit. Then I had to go sit under a tree and wheeze for a while until he came over to be proud of himself. It's a good thing," Sam adds, "he's so easy to like." 

"You have no idea," Maria tells him, with feeling taking her bottle back. "And the really funny thing is he doesn't even realize it." 

Then she says, "You are in no way obligated to keep up with me for the sprints, for the record." 

Sam's looking at her, so he manages to catch what _might_ just be a bit of mischief in the edges of her expression, so he lets his look get level. "I just tell you that story," he says, "and then you say _that_." 

The look that goes with her shrug is _definitely_ mock innocent, and hell, her smile's pretty, even if she's using it to laugh at him. 

 

It turns out he doesn't do too bad with the sprints, probably because the part where his legs are that bit longer actually helps. He doesn't bother to check his heart-rate in between, but Maria keeps her checks up; he wonders if that's a stress monitoring thing. 

About the fourth one, though, he does glance up and say the thing that's been on his mind since the pause, sort of looming up in the back: "You're not worried about snipers?" And he jerks his chin towards the roofs around them. 

Maria looks at him thoughtfully, like she's weighing something before she answers. "If I had fewer resources than I do for straight-up watching the externals of these buildings," she says eventually, "I would be. But with what I've got - " she shrugs. "There's only two snipers I'm really worried about, and one of them likes me, and the other's apparently lurking in Steve's spare bedroom most of the time." 

There's a note in her voice that makes Sam give her a sideways look. "Not happy about that?" he asks, voice neutral, the kind of neutral that invites the other person to go on. He's pretty good at that, and, well. 

It's not like knowing what the other people in on this stuff think and how they're likely to act _isn't_ useful. 

This time the expression that flicks across her face is sardonic. "It's my job to think about how shit can go horribly wrong, and figure out what to do about it," she says. "Has been for years, moving to SI didn't change it. I don't like it when my only answer is 'call Hawkeye and the Black Widow and hope I didn't just sign two friends' death warrants by doing it', and right now it is, and the potential for bad shit is basically built in. There's no way you don't know that, Wilson." 

Sam kind of wants to ask why she defaults to Barton and Natasha, why Stark himself isn't somewhere higher on her list, but right now there's no way that wouldn't come off like a deflection. So instead he says, "Trust me, I do." 

"So no," she finishes. "I'm not really happy about it." 

Now she gives him a sidelong look, and there's a quiet few seconds. They've actually passed the time for the next sprint, but Sam's not gonna point that out. Her face is set in lines closer to the person he met in the back of the paddy-wagon, mixed in with deep thought, and it's an interesting shift - but eventually it softens again, and she sighs. 

"I'm not going to ask about specifics," she says, quietly, moving to walk a bit closer so (Sam's pretty sure) she can _stay_ quiet, "because we both know you're not going to give them to me and fuck knows I get that. But given that it's all going to land in my lap if it does go wrong, your general impression would be . . . appreciated." 

The phrasing's Agent Hill's, but her face is still softer - but the content catches Sam off guard enough that he blinks, and gives her a quizzical look. "Your lap?" he asks. Maria raises both eyebrows at him. 

"You haven't wondered why Steve hasn't had a throwdown with the CIA yet?" she asks, sounding halfway between wry amusement and surprise. Sam shrugs. 

"Well, yeah," he admits. They're still keeping their voices fairly low. "I wondered. But like I told Fury once - as far as it goes, I'm a soldier, not a spy. So I just kept wondering. But now I'm gathering it was you. Stark Industries, I mean," he clarifies. "So Stark, and because of Stark, you." 

"Certain parties were . . _informally_ given to understand that any harassment of Captain Rogers (retired), be it legal, extra-legal or otherwise, would have unwanted consequences," Maria confirms, in a dry and dispassionate kind of way - like she's quoting the kind of roundabout allusive language the whole conversation probably had taken place in, come to think of it. "They took the point, and so far they've mostly fucked off." 

Sam tries to assimilate that, turning it over and over in his head and getting stuck on the same thing. "What could Stark do?" he asks, because he can't actually think of much, but it does kind of have to be Stark: the man might be infuriatingly cavalier about some things, but it's also pretty _clear_ that for some reason of his own he's wrapped right up in this, emotionally speaking, and it's a hill he's at least willing to contemplate dying on. 

After all, there's the whole thing where Sam's here. And why. And as annoyingly off-hand as he is about some of it, and as deep in denial about the seriousness of some aspects of the whole situation, Sam has to admit he's _grateful_. Stark could be a hell of a pain in the ass about this, and that . . . would make things hard. 

But still - 

Maria's laugh is mostly mirthless. There's nothing _quite_ condescending in how she glances at him, but Sam's still got the feeling his question's somehow naive.

And Maria confirms that, this smile just as mirthless as the laugh. But sharper. 

"You can start with enough legal action to bring down the most of Washington," she says. "Domestic _and_ international." 

"Over what?" Sam asks, and she sketches an expansive gesture with one hand. 

"Everything. Anything. Start with Insight - the government of the United States of America is _extremely_ vulnerable, given just how extensively HYDRA operated here, and exactly what military actions and espionage work they used a number of US agencies to conduct. There just aren't any plaintiffs with the will _and_ the money to make that stick - _yet_. And that's just to start with. Never mind how many people have grievances for other reasons. Hell," she says, "how many do _you_ see, every time the system fails someone? Every bullshit decision someone makes about somebody's treatment, or not giving it to them, or whatever?"

This gesture takes in the wide, wide variety of ways veterans can and do get screwed over, and Sam has to grant her the point. 

"Now imagine some bright shiny hot-ass lawyer shows up to one of your clients and offers to take on their case for free," Maria says. "And imagine a PI following every single member of Congress, the Senate, _everyone_ around," she goes on, "all the time, 24/7, looking for anything even remotely indictable. Digging through everyone's past. And then if you're not already scared, imagine what SI could do to the economy, if Stark decided he wanted to play dirty. Imagine billions and billions of dollars all aimed at that." 

Sam doesn't say anything, because he's not actually sure he can wrap his brain around that. His head's coming up with all kinds of objections, but the thing that makes him hesitate is how flatly sure she sounds, and then realizing that all his objections basically depend on assuming that Tony Stark is - 

Well. That Tony Stark's _not_ as stubbornly, obsessively single-minded as Steve Rogers. Not just as willing to stand in front of a speeding damn train and tell it _no_ you _move._ Because doing all of that would cost him, might even wreck him, but on consideration -

The thing is, if you think about a guy who takes what everyone thinks is a dead-end and turns it into a super-power, in a cave with the proverbial box of scraps, _under_ the nose of people who'd tortured him and could've killed him at any minute, just to start with . . . that does not actually paint a picture of someone _less_ likely to play Immovable Object than Steve. Which means that if he decides to put his foot down on something, "this is going to destroy my life" might well not be a consideration anymore. 

Before he can figure out what to say, Maria adds, "And then after you've imagined that, consider the fact that Stark Security is basically a private army, that given there are plants and factories internationally there are quite a few branches of it that are _not_ staffed by US citizens, and that even where the local ones are, Steve's story is pretty damn easy to spin sympathetically . . . " she trails off, and this time the look Sam gives her is pretty much horrified. She shrugs. 

"You're serious," he says. He definitely can't wrap his head around _this_. When she nods, expression level, he shakes his head. "Why's he willing to do that?" 

"Honestly? I don't know," Maria admits. "I have no idea. But whatever the reason, it's compelling enough that Pepper's right behind him instead of trying to calm him down. Most of the stuff was prepped while you and Steve were still travelling every time you got a lead, and when Barnes showed up . . ." she spreads her hands. "The head of Legal handled the communication," she says, "and the threats never got overt - not yet - so that's where things stand."

Part of Sam's really unsettled, because he feels pretty strongly that the world's not supposed to work this way. On the other hand, a lot of the rest of him, including the pragmatic parts, points out that if the world wasn't working this way, they'd be in . . . a lot more trouble. A _lot_ more. So would everyone else. He's not sure he's a big fan of that particular tension.

"So far we're lucky: President Ellis isn't an idiot and he does owe Stark at least some gratitude about not being lit on fire over a flaming oil explosion," Maria remarks, dryly, catching Sam off-balance and making him kind of snort a laugh. It was a point. She goes on,"And after the Insight dust and mess started to settle out, it turns out the new director of the CIA isn't actually an idiot and neither is the one at the FBI, and between them they're being territorial as fuck at everyone else. They've got a couple of people watching the situation, but so far that's it. For now they're basically doing what we are, which is hoping they don't have to do anything else." 

She glances at Sam and gives him a slightly sympathetic expression, so he figures he must look pretty poleaxed, and adds, "Personally my plan was to get them both out of the country and tucked away somewhere before the shit hit the fan, and then see which country without an extradition treaty with us wants to offer asylum. But that's where the stalemate stands. Obviously," she adds, "none of this is openly - " 

"Yeah," Sam agrees, immediately. Then he shakes his head again, like if he does that enough everything'll go back to its proper place in his head and shit will make sense again. "I gotta say," he tells her, "the world you live in is nuts." 

Maria actually reaches over and pats him on the shoulder. "I hate to break it to you, Sam," she says, not without sympathy, "but the way things are, now you live here too. That's why I'm interested in your impression." 

"Right," he says, and thinks _right_. That's what this had started with. That's _why_ he now knows all this shit that it's a bit uncomfortable to know. He tries to twitch his thoughts back onto that track from where they've ended up, which is totally derailed by how he is apparently now tangled up in all. . . _that_. He doesn't even know what to call that. Other than a mess. Maybe another kind of time-bomb. 

That thought makes getting back to what she asked easier, though, and he rubs the back of his neck. Tries to think of the least ominous way to put it, and also to put his huge floating cloud of thoughts and assessments and impressions - the kind that _he_ uses for what he tries to do - into something useful for someone like Hill. 

Sighs. 

"My general impression," he says, at last, "is that if we were talking about any other situation, I'd be pretty insistent he be institutionalized. It'd be bad for him," and he admits that outright, because it would be, "in its own way, but the current situation isn't tenable. Except . . . that it has to be." This time he spreads his hands. 

Maria's been taking another drink from her water-bottle, and she hands it to him; he swallows some of the water (cold, she must freeze half the bottle) and hands it back before going on. 

"Not even," he says slowly, "not even _just_ because he'd probably leave a pile of bodies if anyone tried to take him in. That's only a piece of it. The rest of it's . . . well, it's Steve." 

Maria gives him a _keep going_ look. "On this subject I don't have impressions of Steve," he tells her, "at this point, after all that chasing around the world and shit, it's not impressions, it's absolute certainties, and when it comes to this, Steve - " 

He trails off, stuck for a way that sums it up and gives it enough weight. He settles on, "Steve's running two separate times now that he saved the world and it cost him that man. Now if he has to make that choice again? I'm pretty damn sure the world's gonna have to count on _someone else_." 

Maria's face tells Sam he's just confirmed something she sort of wished he hadn't, and he shakes his head. "He's not rational about this, Maria," he says, and thinks it might be the first time he's used her given name out loud. He's still keeping his voice down, but he tries to give it as much weight as he can. He hesitates, and then decides actually, she should know _just_ how bad it is. 

"I've only said this to one other person," he says, "and only because my expertise only goes so far and she's willing to give me advice even if I don't fill her in on all the details - but since you say it'll be you has to handle it if things go bad, I'll say it to you too." He looks at her directly and asks, "You ever see someone whose kid's in serious danger? Missing? Hurt bad?" 

Maria's face goes a few steps towards expressionless. She's got a really _good_ mask of expressionless, actually. "More often than you want to know," she tells him, voice in the same kind of mode and Sam nods. 

"I believe that," he says. "And obviously Barnes isn't Steve's kid. But that's how to think about all of this, because that's where Steve's head's at - _that_ kind of investment. He's not gonna react to things like you'd expect if this was his friend, or his brother, or fuck, even his boyfriend or husband - he's gonna react like this is his kid. And . . ." he sighs. "And it's only gonna get worse." 

After a silence that lasts about half a block, Maria says, "Want a coffee?" in a brighter, much more "normal" kind of voice - and obviously giving up on the rest of the run. Which is probably fair, given they're what, one, two blocks from Stark Tower now. 

"There anything open at this time?" Sam asks, and then feels slow on the uptake when she half-smiles.

"No," she says, "but I have a killer espresso machine in my suite." 

 

It is, in fact, an amazing espresso machine. 

It's the kind of machine a cafe would be delighted to have, and it's actually kind of pretty with all the red and silver, and it takes up a not inconsiderable amount of room on one of the counters of the giant kitchen in Maria's suite. On the other hand, it keeps company with what look like other damn-near-industrial sized cooking things, evidence of her overwhelming and totally work-unrelated hobby, so it doesn't actually look out of place. 

She'd kind of firmly changed the subject on the last couple blocks and in the elevator, in the way that is a definite hint. The new subject ended up being cooking, and equipment for cooking, because she'd explained about her killer espresso machine and how it had been a present from Ms Potts after the first time Maria made what she calls Anger Bread (which turns out to be bread made almost entirely so she can punch it and smash it and dig her fingers into it and so on, like she's not allowed to do with real people) then brought it down to the office. 

That turns out to be one of Maria's small amusements in life: bringing in the results of her baking and giving everyone serious cognitive dissonance. Sam thinks it's hilarious. 

She's got all the full on cafe equipment for the machine, too, and Sam sits at her breakfast bar on one of the tall stools while she wrangles it. Other than the kitchen _equipment_ , what he can see of the suite is oddly impersonal, the kind of personality-less neutrals you put in a nice hotel-room. He wonders, idly, if that's defensive. If it's a kind of behavioural promise that she's not staying here any longer than she has to. 

It's the kind of thing he always ends up wondering when he's in other people's houses: what does their decor say about them? It's interesting because there's no straightforward answers. There's so much context, and all of that. But really what he's getting from this suite is that Maria doesn't live here, she just crashes here with a bunch of her own stuff. 

When she's done steaming milk and other espresso sorcery, Maria sits down and slides Sam the mocha he asked for when she asked him what he wanted. She's got a quad espresso for her part, with honey in it. And all the seriousness is coming back into her face. 

"What do you mean, worse?" she asks, like she deliberately waited until they were very _definitely_ where nobody could possibly overhear before she was gonna ask it. Which is funny, because it's not that much more than what they'd been talking about, but he can see why she'd be concerned. From her point of view, "worse" probably means . . . more chaos, or something, most of the time. 

Sam stirs his drink a little, dragging the thin, long-handled spoon around the edge of the cup and making a little moat around the whipped cream, sorting out how to explain. It occurs to him that in some ways that's his whole life, now: explaining people to people. Sometimes the person he's explaining and the person he's explaining to are the same person. A lot of the time, really. Sometimes they aren't. But that's pretty much it: explain this enough that it makes sense, and then explain it even more, enough that the person can start changing it. 

"Ever look after someone who needed a lot of care, long term?" he asks. "And the long term part here is important," he adds, before she can answer. "I'm not talking about the flu, here, or someone getting stabbed, I'm talking about months at least, mostly longer. Kid that's yours, parent with dementia, something like that." 

It makes her pause, and he can see her revising her answer; she shakes her head. "No," she says. "Hasn't really come up in my life." 

"Yeah, didn't think so," Sam replies, leaning his elbows on the counter, circling the rim of his mug again. "But I don't like to assume, because it comes up more than people think. 

"See the thing is," he says, keeping his voice measured, spreading the whole thing out in front of himself so he can mentally see what he's about to say, "when you have to look after someone like that, you either end up resenting the fuck out of them, or every day you end up investing more in them. Loving them more. Being more attached, making them more part of you and how you even think about your life. 

"Or," he adds, having to acknowledge that, as he scoops the top of the whipped cream off, "if you're really fucking unlucky, both. You can have both. But you can't have _neither_. You think about someone, worry about them, clean up after them, help them, do work for them, do work because of them - do that long enough and it's either the worst burden you've ever had or the most intense and serious love, or both, but you can't get away with neither. You can't do it. Every day, going through the _acts_ of caring for someone, in the end you _end up_ caring for them. In the emotional sense.

"So what I'm saying is, any level of investment Steve's got in this guy _now_? First of all it's even more than it was when he was gonna let the guy beat him to death on that helicarrier, and secondly, it's only gonna go further. Anyone wants to do _anything_ to or with James Barnes," Sam finishes, "they're gonna have to go straight _through_ Steve Rogers, and that's only ever going to get _more_ true." 

Maria listens without interrupting, face is unreadable. After a moment, she skims the crema off her expresso and then turns the spoon over and stirs it back in. It strikes Sam that it's just kind of fiddling. He bets Agent Hill doesn't really fiddle. 

"That's kind of terrifying," she says, her voice mostly expressionless. 

"God knows I know it," Sam replies, soberly. Now he starts stirring the melting whipped cream into the coffee. "So there's your nightmare fuel for the month. Otherwise . . ." and now he tries to pull back from that and to consider the other aspects. "Otherwise my impression is . . . fucked if I know, honestly." He shrugs, a little helplessly. "Could go either way. I mean for one thing I'm pretty sure Steve's editing what he tells me, and more importantly - " because he figures of all people, Maria's probably pretty safe to tell this, " - Natasha thinks he's editing what he tells me, even if she thinks it's just spin, not outright lies." 

"I would honestly trust Natasha's impressions on this kind of thing before I'd trust my own," Maria says, matter-of-fact, and Sam inclines his head to acknowledge it. "So if she says it's spin, it's spin." 

"Right," Sam says. "So what I'm getting is everything that can get spun to sound kind of good. But that means at the very _least_ , Barnes is . . . " 

He stops, pulls a hand down his face and sighs. "Okay, technically, I don't diagnose, because that's the territory of people who went to medical school and get to put 'MD' after their names, but as I'm sure you know, that's bullshit. Given that - even with just what Steve is telling me, spun however he's spinning it, Barnes has the worst case of PTSD I ever hope to see. I mean, I never wanted to see one this bad, so I hope to God I never see worse. He persistently dissociates - like, I mean _persistently_. Point of fact, correcting for spin, I'm not sure there's any time he's not dissociating a little. He has full on psychosis, and he doesn't like talking so it's hard to tell if they're flashbacks or something else, but they're definitely him losing his hold on reality. 

"There's some kind of eating disorder going on, beyond just the physical problems with food he used to have. He barely sleeps. I would also say he's not _exactly_ the severest case of depression I've ever seen," Sam adds, grimly, "but that guy literally hadn't been out of bed in two days. On the other hand, if Steve weren't there, I'm not sure Barnes wouldn't get there pretty quick. So that gives us, what, severe PTSD, severe depression, dissociative disorder, EDNOS . . . " he trails off, as Maria grimaces. "Yeah," he says. "Pretty much. It's the kind of stuff up till now I mostly only read in case-studies of _unbelievably_ abused kids, like the kind who get tied to a toilet and left there for days. Except it's a grown man who can kill people with one hand." 

Maria's arms are folded. Now she definitely looks a bit more like Agent Hill, and she asks, "Are there any positive indications?" 

Sam opens one hand. "Maybe. Steve says he has bits of memory, but he reacts really, _really_ badly to Steve trying to provide any kind of detail or context, and sure as hell doesn't believe all the memories are real or, if they are real, that they actually happened to him, or that that means anything. There's stuff that's promising in terms of thinking of him like a patient," he goes on, thoughtfully, "because basically the first five days he was at Steve's he sat in a corner in his room, on the floor, came out when Steve was asleep, took a tiny amount of food, threw some or most of it up, and then went back to the corner." 

"Jesus," Maria murmurs. She looks down at her cup, blank-faced, and then finishes the last of her espresso. 

"Yeah," Sam agrees, "and I know I'm giving you more details than impression, but that's because I'm not sure you can understand the impression without those details, and I don't want to mislead. Because yeah, that's where we started. Where he started. So now that there's occasionally talking, picking up a taste for coffee, coming out of the room during day-time, showering and shaving and all that shit, that's a big deal - but don't ask me what it means," he finishes, "when it comes to stability, or danger, or how this is gonna end. Could be a good sign, could be awful - could mean he's gonna get stable enough to really start acting out. That happens. You get people out of bad situations, they start getting kind of comfortable, that means they start pushing to find out where the edges are, where you're gonna start acting like they expect. Or maybe he won't. Couldn't tell you."

Maria nods, slowly. She pulls the hair-tie out of her pony-tail and runs her fingers through her hair. "Yeah, I've had experience with that one. The finding the boundaries part." 

Sam takes a drink of his mocha, and something occurs to him. "The one thing I _can_ say," he notes, "is that he's in and out of that building when he wants to be, because Steve's _not_ gonna keep him confined, and I'm not stupid enough to suggest it. So he's going wherever and more or less whenever he wants, and in spite of that he doesn't show any signs of having killed anyone, and neither do the papers that I've been able to dig up."

"We haven't heard anything either," Maria confirms. "And we have a few more resources than you do for keeping track, and we're watching pretty closely for that kind of thing." She looks thoughtful for a few moments, and then shakes her head. "You know Stark bought both neighbouring condos," she says. "And the one underneath." 

" . . .that man has some serious issues around this whole thing," Sam says, shaking his head. 

"Tony Stark," Maria says flatly, "just has serious issues." 

For a moment, she leans her elbows on the other side of the counter and rests her face in her hands. It's surprisingly unguarded, as gestures go, and it's unexpected enough that Sam frowns and asks, "What?" 

Maria lifts her face, like she's just surprised herself by putting it in her hands to start with, and then shakes her head. "I'm . . . really missing a friend right now," she says. "A colleague. He was . . . a lot better at dealing with the exciting personality and sanity conflicts inherent in working with extremely gifted assets than I am." 

Sam winces, and one thing drives out everything else for a second. "Off-topic," he says, "but you might want to make a mental note to excise that word out of your vocabulary around Steve." When she looks at him he clarifies, "'Asset'. I gather it's basically the _only_ way HYDRA ever referred to Barnes - 'the asset' - so Steve's really got sensitized to the word by now," and it's her turn to grimace. 

Then there's silence, for a second, as he takes in what she said for content instead of detail. Notes the fatigue in the words, and grief, and mostly the honesty: _better at dealing with_ . . . and well, Sam's gotta admit, dealing with people even a little bit like this, or like Natasha, or like Stark - doing that all the time _would_ be a skill. "Lose your friend to Insight?" he asks, gently. 

Maria shakes her head. "Battle of New York," she says. Her voice has the kind of even with a tiny tinge of wistful that Sam mostly hears from people when something still hurts, but isn't gutting them anymore. "I've wondered how the whole mess would have gone down, if he'd been around. But," she says, smiling thinly, and clearly trying to shake that off, "that's a depressing topic to start the day with." 

"Actually general topic-wise it's pretty much my normal morning," Sam tells her, solemnly, picking up on her obvious desire to change the subject. And hey, it's true. The comment makes her blink, and give a short, abrupt laugh. 

"Point to you," she says. She finishes shaking the rest off, as far as Sam can see, because she goes on, "And fuck, wow, Nick Fury really did have the _worst_ effect on my manners - thank you. For filling me in, and trusting me with detail. I know you didn't really sign up for this." 

"Well, I kinda did," Sam informs her solemnly. "I didn't know what the hell I was signing up for, but that's on me. Besides, I like your whole 'get them out of the country, get France to thumb its nose at us' plan better than any of the things I was imagining, when it came to shit hitting the fan, so consider us even. Or, if you want," he goes on, as he remembers something he was thinking earlier, "you can answer a question for me." 

Maria tilts her head. "Fire away." 

"What do you actually _do_ here?" he asks, and she burst out laughing again. 

 

While they talk, she makes them eggs benedict. 

Specifically, she makes them _amazing_ eggs benedict, in way less time than Sam's gut feels like it should take to make eggs benedict. 

"I used to cook with my Nona," she says, as Sam watches her actually manage to slide the eggs into the water to poach them without them going all over the damn place, something he's never managed. "Then I went to college. I lasted all of two days on the meal plan." She makes a face. "And I just maybe ended up making pocket money for the rest of the semester from letting people buy into me cooking in the dorm kitchen for slightly more than cost. And then by the time I got out of the Army I'd basically sworn on Nona's grave - which she didn't have yet - that I was never eating food that bad _again_." 

Sam grins. "And then it was a hobby that had absolutely nothing to do with work," he provides, guessing, and then laughs at her emphatic, expressive agreement via expression, upward glance, and nod. 

"Absolutely. Nothing. Completely separate. Then I started bringing it to work," she says, "because it put people off-balance. Also I kinda had nobody else to feed my baking to. I mean," she elaborates, flipping the ham over in the pan, "savoury food, meals, that I could just stick in the freezer in portions, more or less. Eat left-overs, that kind of thing. Baking . . . " 

"Yeah that'd just get bad real fast," Sam agrees. 

"I mean I had a high caloric need," Maria says, dryly, "but not _that_ high. Besides, mostly anyone with enough clearance to wind up near our offices shouldn't be making assumptions about people based on stereotypes, and if they were, they needed a reminder not to." 

When, after having a few bites, Sam asks, "Have you ever considered retiring from international espionage and armed conflict and just becoming a chef?" she shakes her head, but she looks gratified. 

"I'd kill someone," she confesses. "Someone would come into my restaurant and say something wrong about the food or give me attitude on the wrong day, and then there'd be a homicide and that is _not_ the way to get a five-star rating." 

Sam pretends to look thoughtful. "Could be a special deal," he says. "Bring someone you hate, get ten dollars off?" 

Maria has an unexpected laugh, and it's like she's the one who doesn't expect it. Sam wonders if it's just a quirk, or if she really has laughed just that little, in her life. 

Really, with her career history, he could go either way. 

 

It's only seven when he steers himself down the hallways to the other side of the Tower and his guest room and a ridiculously nice shower. A ridiculously nice, programmable shower. Granted that he only arrived last night, and late last night, so that he barely got more than welcome from the Tower staff before he gratefully hit the bed, he's still happy - so far - that he decided to go with accepting hospitality over finding himself a hotel. Hotels this nice were decisively outside the reach of his budget. 

He does sort of hope that the little touch-screen message centre in the hallway might just be the wave of the future, though, because it's way nicer than getting calls from the front desk. By the time he's dressed, there's a relatively polite invitation to join Stark, Drs Ross and Banner, and Col Rhodes in the penthouse for breakfast. 

And while he's not really hungry, he figures the coffee'll probably be good.


End file.
